


Memories Can Lie

by sanva



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Rating: PG13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanva/pseuds/sanva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does it mean to remember for a terminator? Can a machines memory be faulty?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Did you kill her?”

“Apparently not.”

Did I? The memory, the data file isn’t clear. Is this what humans call second guessing oneself?

Did Alison Young, resistance fighter, die that day in the cell? Did she live on? Did I leave her alive?

I can’t tell John about this, any of it. He asks why I had asked to be called Alison. I tell him in was a name that had been inserted into my databanks from before. A fragment of memory awakened by the explosion.

It is in one way. It isn’t my name though, I don’t think it is anyway.

My model is different then the others. Smaller, built precisely for one purpose: to infiltrate John Connor’s camp. I was never meant for prolonged warfare and I am the only one that exists of my kind.

TOK-715

The 715th individual soldier built by Skynet of the TOK line. The best model yet, and the most likely to be successful at my mission.

Interrogate, Learn, Imitate, Deceive.

I was built in the image of her, Alison. A young, brave, determined soldier. One of the few women among the resistance whose name is known to Skynet- at least in part. Her first name was easy to get from those we captured. It was her last name that had evaded Skynet.

It wasn’t till she stood in front of me, when I was still in my endoskeleton form. No skin stretched over my coltan skeleton—even that was void of anything other then the barest of detail.

I required a lower level model to stand beside me as guard. That was how she managed to escape, an error in a calculation had made me send the “grunt” to expedite the resolution of a conflict amongst the other prisoners.

She was brave. She was strong. For such a fragile creature . . . I watched her move through the old ship. Stumbling, picking herself up again, ever moving forward. She relied on hope and determination.

No wonder Connor picked her.

I could see what he had seen, I understood what he did.

As she stared at me, lied to my face, I understood.

My hand clenched and I saw the raw power in her eyes. Skynet had only encountered one other that could truly match that determination.

I saw that look and I understood. My hand clenched and then dropped. She slumped, her body hitting the hard surface of the table with a thud.

I removed the bracelet from her wrist and turned away.

Yes, I understood. I had to meet this man that could instill such loyalty and . . . emotion from his followers.

I reached the door and paused. My body turned of its own accord and I titled my head toward her. The bracelet set on my own wrist. It’s metal glistened in the lamps in the hall.

I am a liar. I do not feel emotions the way a human does.

I glance out the car window, a finger runs over the stone on my necklace.

I remember her though, the brave resistance fighter who could barely write her own name. She grew up in a desolate world, hunted for being what she was.

My kind is hunted too. I hunt them.

I remember now, the first time I met him. I saw his soldiers greet him, cheer for small victories.

I remember how he figured out what I was.

Metal glistening in the light that shown on me as I entered the resistance’s hideout.

I remembered the sad eyes as he hung his head and greeted me.

He called me Cameron. I called him John

Alison taught me more then she knew, gave me more then Skynet ever could.

John is talking on his cell phone, Derek called to ask where we’ve been.

I turn my head to watch him as he talks, the movements the muscles in his face make, the way he rolls his eyes slightly at some comment.

The red blinking on my faded HUD starts up again.

I turn my head away and manually override the command.

Alison gave me more then she could ever have imagined.

So I’ll keep him safe, for her.

Her birthday is July 22nd.

Perhaps I’ll give John a mountain bike.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison's POV

Brown eyes stare into mine. Eyes so much like my own.

I can’t help but fear, not for myself . . . for him. Them. Everyone.

I lied.

Not everyone died, some of us remained. Starving, hunted, lost in a world that had changed overnight.

When I was little my mother used to read me bed time stories, stories about little girls who lived in large buildings, of animals that could talk. They were stories about people who had no need to be afraid of the sky.

They didn’t hide, they didn’t cower beneath the ground. They ate fresh food, feasts like Thanksgiving dinner—only bigger.

We don’t have feasts anymore. Not like before. I can barely remember a time when food wasn’t a special commodity. That it wasn’t something that people killed for.

I didn’t lie about eating garbage. What else do we have? There’s no sunlight, no fields, no stores filled to the brim with delicious treats. There is nothing else for us. We live off of what came before, the ghosts of our past.

Those ghosts won’t leave us alone.

I’m not surprised, not entirely.

I school myself, like I was taught. Don’t let them know, don’t let them find out.

They can’t know, or all that remains will be gone, just like everyone you knew before.

Just like Mom. Just like Dad. Just like all your friends.

I did have a birthday party in the park on my birthday. It was small and fun, the cake was bright.

I can’t remember what it tastes like.

I remember the bike, I remember the boy riding it. Not because I thought him cute or attractive, I was too young for that.

I remember running after bubbles onto a cement path. I remember my mothers shriek and the screech of rubber on pavement.

I remember looking up into green eyes and having them bear down on me.

Shock. Disbelief. Other emotions I couldn’t identify then. Fear.

“Alison!” My mother had called.

I close my eyes for a moment and focus on myself. I can’t break, I won’t break. I’ve been through worse- my life has always been hell.

I saw my parents die; I’ve seen my friends killed.

I don’t want those that remain to suffer their fate.

I stare at the figure before me, a mirror image. Perfect yet completely not right. How do they think they could fool anyone?

He won’t be fooled. He won’t. I know that, I am positive.

He couldn’t mistake me, or anyone, for one of them.

Chosen? Chosen… life chooses, not a person, not an thing. It’s the twists and turns of fate that lead us into these moments. Curse fate. Curse destiny.

I don’t want to be the downfall of him. I can’t be.

The bracelets clink against the metal of the table and each other. I stare at them, I can barely hear as it talks.

It is right. I did lie.

I didn’t have a sister. I never had a chance for true siblings.

But I have friends. I have comrades. I have family in them.

It can think what it wants.

I’ll never give the machines John Connor.

No matter what they do to me. They can kill me, they can make a copy of me.

He’ll know. He’ll always know.

Because Skynet, it’s soldiers, they can’t understand, they don’t understand. They have no idea.

John Connor saves the world. He saved me. So I’ll save him.

Humanity was on the brink of extinction. Hunted, slaughtered. For nothing more then existing.

We weren’t cattle or prey to be eaten.

Some machine decided we had to be killed for what makes us human.

Emotions bring war, emotions bring pain, they bring violence and death.

The machines understand those, somehow.

They don’t, can’t, understand everything.

They don’t know love, they can’t.

They can’t understand why we wear bracelets.

They don’t know how humanity is capable of rebuilding what was lost.

We’re being hunted and like any prey, we bounce back. We connect, with eachother.

A tear falls. There’s fear in my heart, but I’m not afraid of death. Not of my own.

I’ll keep this secret and he’ll know.

He’s always known. That I realize now. How could I not. I understand.

I close my eyes as the facsimile of my own had wraps around my throat.

I am a liar.

I have to be.

For him.

The truth is too precious, too obvious, too perfect for them to see.

The pressure on my neck increases, my eyes open steady, strong. The glare of the light shines between me and it.

I imagine a day in a park, when the sun still shone and green eyes stared into my brown, my mother worried, my father smiled and opaque bubbles floated past a silver mountain bike.


End file.
